Fans pick 100 books like Bi

As a writer, each time I read anything by James Baldwin, it´s like I´m getting a master class in how to capture a feeling and translate that into an articulate thought. When a friend told me to read this book over 30 years ago, shortly after I came out, they said this was “the best, and perhaps the most tragic novel about bisexuality ever written.”

Years later, it still kicks me in the gut each time I read it. Baldwin´s detailed examination of David´s desire for Giovanni while simultaneously being engaged to his fiancé, Hella, remains achingly beautiful.

For academic perspectives on bisexuality, this book is a great resource. Because many books on bisexuality are centred in or around North America this is a welcome addition. It is the first to bring together academic research on bisexual people from around Europe. It also won the Bisexual Book Award for Best Non-Fiction Book of 2020 (if you’re looking for more bi books the annual Bi book awards by the Bi Writers Association is always a good place to search!). 

The book includes research from different disciplines, showcasing the many ways that scholars have approached bi+ issues. It provides fascinating insights that are a great stepping stone for venturing deeper into the topic. 

Textbooks can be expensive, and many academic articles are locked behind pay-walls, so the authors made sure that there’s an open access version of the textbook (click the direct link below).

If you’re a bi history nerd like me, you’re going to love this insight into some of the early thoughts on bisexuality by sex researcher Havelock Ellis. Already in the late 1800s, Ellis - who was in an open relationship, and whose wife was bisexual - did research with bisexual people. 

His writing shows us that bisexuality isn’t trendy or new, that the stereotypes we battle today were already being criticised over a century ago, and that some people had positive ideas about bisexuality. For example, Ellis attributed the success of great leaders and artists to their bisexuality. He credits this to the “innately democratic attitude” of bisexual people to see beyond social class. Ellis a key figure in bi history who often gets missed, but his work can give a real sense of connectedness with our past. 

His books can be hard to find in print, but Project Gutenberg… show more.

If it’s personal accounts and many different voices you are looking for, The Bi-ble: Vol. 2 is perfect. It includes essays by various bisexual people, giving brief and poignant insights into their lives. 

This easy-to-read collection is a good example of the long tradition of anthologies in bi+ literature. Some stories are deeply relatable, others challenge you to look beyond your own experiences. It helped me to realise that while there is a commonality between the experiences of bisexual people, there are important individual differences that we need to keep in mind. No one person can speak for the entire bi community, so this book lets many people have their own voice.

Yuknavitch's prose is less a narrative and more a visceral experience. Reading it is like being caught in a riptide—disorienting, intense, and ultimately exhilarating. Her exploration of grief, sexuality, and survival doesn’t just skim the surface; it dives deep into the murky waters of human existence.

The raw honesty of her writing is both brutal and beautiful, making you feel like you’ve been handed the author’s very soul—scuffed, scarred, and utterly captivating.

In her groundbreaking Gender Trouble, Judith Butler develops the idea that we today call gender fluidity. Butler knows queer life intimately, and Gender Trouble speaks to much of the difficulty queer people, myself included, face in the world. It is thus not only brilliant but also generous and caring.

Butler set the stage for a philosophical problem I address in my book, namely that her type of position cannot fully explain (philosophically) why some people identify as gay, straight, lesbian, or bisexual – just as they cannot explain why it’s existentially important for some trans people to transition.

Shatter the Sky is a quick-read YA high fantasy. It’s the story of Maren, who wants to live an ordinary life with her girlfriend, Kaia. When Kaia is kidnapped, Maren decides to apprentice herself to the Aromatory—the emperor’s mysterious dragon tamer—as a first step in her rescue plan. 

Shatter the Sky features a number of diverse characters and a sapphic romance and has been highly praised for breaking ground in the YA fantasy realm. I particularly enjoyed the Aromatory, the new take on dragons, and a main character who begins by viewing herself as unimportant but progresses to accepting her power and recognizing her value. Maren’s story continues—with ramped-up stakes, more dragons, and a complicated political plot in the meatier second book in this duology—Storm the Earth.

This book is probably the single most praised underground gay novel of my generation, and deservedly so. It’s so many things—beautiful writing, an old west setting in all its ugliness and adventure and hope, and a highly original narrative voice in the bisexual native orphan, Shed, who is being raised in a bordello. All the characters are well-drawn and as odd as the narrator, and the erotic journey, if I can call it that, is one of the most original, thought-provoking, and beautiful expressions of the possibilities of queer I’ve ever encountered. Spanbauer has helped me to write more skillfully about class and race and sexuality and how they are everywhere and how they can warp—and sometimes, oftentimes—set people free. 

Guy New York has had a huge influence on my own creative writing, and this book of his is definitely my favorite. A sprawling story set in New York City's East Village of the recent past, this erotic story is raw and raunchy and populated with characters that are absolutely flawed yet totally identifiable.

There are all kinds of sex and intimacy depicted here, but I appreciate how he keeps the focus on the experience of eroticism between all of these characters and genders, no matter how messy or contradictory, as that feels truer to life. Also, for me, it contains some of the most authentic portrayals of male bisexuality I have found in contemporary fiction. Definitely recommend!

Dierdre Winter is one of my favorite independent writers of bisexual erotic literature. Like all of her novellas and short stories, this book takes its time introducing its characters, allowing the reader to get inside their heads.

For all of its highly charged erotic scenes, the book is about communication within a marriage, being honest with your partner about what you desire, and also about trust. Instead of just delivering some quick “word porn,” Winter takes her time to engage all of my senses, particularly my brain.